10 Geforce 8800 GTS 320Mb Video Cards Compared

We continue our Geforce 8800 320Mb tests with the additional of models from Asus, Albatron, Leadtek and the TEC cooled Calibre, comparing gaming performance, overclocking potential and cooling capability with the previous tested cards. This roundup will help you decide what card to get; read on if you´re in the market for a higher end VGA upgrade.

Rivatuner monitoring showed us the real GPU core clock was a bit above rated (513MHz), while the memory is also clocked @ 792MHz (1584MHz DDR).

More pictures

Leadtek uses just like most other manufacturers the reference heatsink, though due to several modifications they succeeded in giving their Winfast 8800GTS more personality.

You might find it crazy, but looking at this card reminds me of the British Morgan Aero 7:

Comment
from Sidney@ 2007/04/30

Nicely done review

Comment
from sandstorm@ 2007/05/02

yes idd, great stuff!

I'm anciously awaiting a 8800GTX with a fanless design cooler. I know it's asking a lot but there are vga-coolers out there that are up for the challenge if you ask me. Placing one for myselfs is out of the question, I don't want to wreck a 500 euro graphicscard and lose my warranty.

Keep up the good reviewing!

Comment
from jmke@ 2007/05/03

HR-03 Plus should be able to do the job if you have decent case cooling

Comment
from jim8@ 2007/12/18

OK........I have the Albatron 8800 gts 320mb that you guys tested, and I see that nobody is testing any card with the new Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Why is that??? I mean....everyone says that this game is quite heavy...and with the albatron card, this game (I watched the game's frame rate counter) gave me 2 to 5 frames on some missions with intense environments (1280x1024 and low in game settings). With less intense environments, and with low settings on the Nvidia control panel, it reached 25 "maybe" 30 fps max, and that happened "sometimes". And I'm using the new Beta drivers from Nvidia 169.17. With those drivers, the same "tough" mission got a maximum of 10 frames. I tampered with the nvidia control panel and pushed up the AA and Anisotropic filters, and the filters of the game, and the frames average between 6 and 13-14. Is that normal??? or am I doing something wrong??? or could it be because of the monitor??? (lol)....I'm planing to play around with the overclocking and see what frames I'll get......is it possible for you to run a test with the FSX and see what numbers you can get????

I wonder how long it takes until you find Madshrimps in the excyclopedia when you look under "roundup" =P

Comment
from jmke@ 2007/12/18

This test was finished back in June, the cards are no longer in our possession :/

Comment
from geoffrey@ 2007/12/18

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim8

OK........I have the Albatron 8800 gts 320mb that you guys tested, and I see that nobody is testing any card with the new Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Why is that??? I mean....everyone says that this game is quite heavy...and with the albatron card, this game (I watched the game's frame rate counter) gave me 2 to 5 frames on some missions with intense environments (1280x1024 and low in game settings). With less intense environments, and with low settings on the Nvidia control panel, it reached 25 "maybe" 30 fps max, and that happened "sometimes". And I'm using the new Beta drivers from Nvidia 169.17. With those drivers, the same "tough" mission got a maximum of 10 frames. I tampered with the nvidia control panel and pushed up the AA and Anisotropic filters, and the filters of the game, and the frames average between 6 and 13-14. Is that normal??? or am I doing something wrong??? or could it be because of the monitor??? (lol)....I'm planing to play around with the overclocking and see what frames I'll get......is it possible for you to run a test with the FSX and see what numbers you can get????

I don't own that game, and besides that it would take just too long for me to test every card in every available game. Therefore we test only the most popular games, or those that make most sense. Concerning your setup, that Pentium 4 540 is not really the fastest CPU those days, maybe you gain some performance when pushing it past 4GHz, I'm quite sure your CPU can do that air cooled.

Comment
from jim8@ 2007/12/19

hhhmmm yes!!!!!........I've been told that before....about the Pentium 4, and I was suggested a Core 2 duo, prefferably one with more than 2GHz. could it be the cpu that limits the frames after all???..........I've tried lower rezolusions too and didn't have any improvement on the frames.........as if something is blocking the card from giving more frames. But anyway, do you know if fsx is actualy that heavy??? .....I've read some reviews of the game and they said that it's for next generation cards.

Comment
from jmke@ 2007/12/19

FSX is a huge resource hog, it will require a lot of RAM, raw CPU power and high end VGA card to run half decent, running it under Vista will further degrade performance;

Comment
from jim8@ 2007/12/19

Daaaaaaaammmnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!......

Comment
from jim8@ 2007/12/22

hey hey hey.........guess what..........overclocking solved my problems eventualy.......even with no overclocking of the CPU, a small overclocking of the GPU and memory, with RivaTuner, to run from 513/1188/792 to 540/1242/810 gave me at least a playable frame rate (7 to 10 fps minimum on "heavy" scinery conditions). Your overclocking guide was most helpful, thanks